I'm Married

I suddenly got terrible at updating this thing. I was doing so well with the Sunday update thing, and then I left for Korea and Japan/got engaged and it all went downhill. Tons of new things to talk about!

First of all, I got married on August 28th, 2009 in the Oquirrh Mountain Temple to Steven Adam Morley. I am now Sarah Bruderer Morley and have most things changed to say that. It's still a hard question when people ask me what my name is, but it's getting better. :) I am definitely enjoying the married life. It was a little weird for the first month or so since it was really just us two. Two people in an apartment. No other roommates, no other distractions, just us. Not to mention that he's male! I'm used to living with girls and their perks, it's definitely different living with a guy, but I'm into the swing of things. His habits, my habits, and just our schedules. Now it feels pretty normal. :)

We finally got all of our wedding pictures as of today. It was annoying because our photographer said she would send us CDs of the pictures 5 weeks after the wedding for editing and whatnot. Alright, sounds good. Two months later, we have nothing. So I called, e-mailed, called again, etc. She wasn't very good at responding... anyway, we finally got our CDs about 10 weeks after our wedding to find out that about 5 of the pictures weren't written to the CDs correctly. So I called... nothing for about a week. I e-mailed, and then she responded in like an hour. It was quite unexpected. Anyway, we finally got them all. You can see almost all of them (except the 5 that didn't work) on facebook. This is a pretty good one:

What else? The semester has ended and the new one is starting tomorrow. I did slightly better than my GPA, so I guess being married hasn't been detrimental to my grades. :) I took CS 240 which was rather intimidating since it's known to be a very time consuming Computer Science class, but I ended up with an A! Yay!

For Christmas, Steve and I flew back to Texas and we actually got a white Christmas! That's absolutely insane! I've never had a white Christmas in Texas. The only times we had white Christmases was when we went to Utah for Christmas, which I think was only once. Maybe twice. I thought it was cool. Kind of interesting that the first Christmas Steve comes to Texas for Christmas, we happen to have a white Christmas. :P

I got some pretty awesome gifts as well. The biggest one was a palm pilot! I'm actually really excited about it, because then I should be more organized! I have my calendar all set up for my classes and such and hopefully I can just bring it with me and schedule things right when I hear about them, set it to remind me, and then I won't have to worry about remembering them! It's pretty awesome. I really like being organized.

This past week has been a lot of fun. We got back from Texas on the 29th and have had people over almost every day to play games and eat food. That's probably my favorite thing to do, just play games with friends and family. It was a little ironic that the only day we didn't have people over was on New Year's Eve since Steve wasn't feeling very well. We ended up just watching two movies and playing the game of Life. It's been a long time since I've played that game--a lot more luck is involved than I remembered. :P It was fun, though. Steve wasn't really up for a really intense strategic game anyway. It was just relaxing and fun.

So, happy 2010! I'll try to be better at updating this thing.

Sarah has a boyfriend??

Yes, this is very true. Sarah does indeed have a boyfriend. Weird! That's my excuse for not keeping up with my blog, as well. We are both rather busy during the week, so we really only get to spend that much time together over the weekends, which include Sundays. Oh well. Here I am before Conference and I figured I should try to post to catch people up with my life.

This week was basically incredibly busy. I kept staying in the Talmage working on this lab for CS 124 until midnight, only to not finish it in time. It turns out I spent a couple hours on something I didn't have to do... which, I did learn a lot from, but it's not like I have oodles of extra time to learn something I don't have to. I'm pretty sure it's done now, hopefully it will pass off tomorrow. I also had 2 tests I took back to back, with another test I'll take tomorrow, and I had to play my mock jury in Master Classes and attempt to practice with my accompanist since Hindemith is incredibly hard to play with the Piano. Oh yeah, and I had a concert Thursday night. But, no worries! The week is over! There's just this week, and then half of next week, and then FINALS! It's so freakin' close!

Okay, so I'm dating. That's was something else that was somewhat upsetting this past week as well. I was so busy (and so was he, with this project that never seems to end) that we could never do anything. I'd come home and see my roommate and my 5th roommate (basically her fiance) spending time together studying or on the couch, and I'd get jealous rather than annoyed. "She has time to spend with her boyfriend..." But yesterday we went bowling and then watched a movie, and today I'm going to his place to watch general conference. :) 

Something that made this week bearable was April Fool's day. Steve and I (that's his name, by the way, Steve Morley) were "officially" dating on the 25th (last Wednesday), and then on April Fool's we figured it'd be fun to be engaged. Somewhat of an impulsive decision at about midnight in the Talmage labs the night before. Oh boy, it made April Fool's utterly hilarious. It all started with my mom sending me a text that morning that said, "Sooooooo I saw facebook. April Fool's?????????? Call me. Love, Mom" LOL! I laughed so hard! I called her back, and she was actually believing it. I had to actually say, "Mom, I'm not engaged. It's April Fool's." It's been a week! A week since we've been dating! I am at BYU, but I could never make a decision like that in a week. Steve was getting congratulations all day long, as well. Wednesday was the peak of my stress/business this week, and I happened to have a great day because of my fake engagement. Steve did mention that this was kind of crying wolf, which I guess it is, but it was fun anyway. :) I figure when I actually get engaged it'll be something people will be expecting, and it will most likely not be on April Fool's Day.

If any of you don't frequent facebook, I'll include some pictures for your enjoyment. :)

Aww, we're so cute. :)

Happy Belated Pi Day!

Okay, so I missed last week. It'll be okay. Honestly, it will. Just to "make up" for it, I have some new videos to post. So, look forward to those at the end of this post. Or, you know, don't. You could just skip all of my ramblings and move on to the videos. It won't hurt my feelings.

The past two weeks have been pretty fun. I'm starting to actually like my CS 124 class, and Calculus seems to be getting better. There was finally a new episode of Smallville (which freakin' rocked), and I performed my newest composition in Master Classes last Wednesday. I recorded it, and I'll probably post it next week or so. It's more of a contemporary piece with some new things in it. I like it a lot.

In other news, yesterday was Pi Day! There was a Pi Day celebration thing in the Wilkinson center on Friday during my CS 124 lecture... which I totally skipped to go to it. :P The biggest reason being that there was a pi recitation contest and the overall winner got an iPod shuffle. I could seriously win this thing! In the past couple of days, Ashley and I added about 40 digits of pi to our knowledge. We are now up to 240 digits. So many! Ashley went first in reciting pi, and she just messed up right at the beginning of where we started adding digits (just skipped a set), but she was still in first place. After a guy that proclaimed before going that he was "guaranteed to win." He got to 174 digits... got me worried at first. They were about to skip me, actually. There were going to end the contest, and so I walked up and said that I had signed up. So, I went. I was so incredibly nervous! Yes, I had recited pi many many times, but they were checking while I was spouting off numbers which meant I had to go slower than normal. I kept practicing saying it slower. The first 150 digits or so I usually don't really think about what numbers I'm saying. It just flows out without me thinking. But, I managed to get to all 240 without messing up. It was awesome. Right after I recited everything (in a microphone in front of a bunch of people... holy crap), this girl came up and actually interviewed me for the Daily Universe. It was kind of weird, actually. She asked questions like, "So, do you memorize other things?" Umm... yes, I do. I usually try to memorize equations for my Calculus test I had earlier this week, syntax for programming, my friends and families names and birthdays, music theory, etc... Instead I just answered that I was thinking about memorizing "e" since I thought that it usually got left out. People just love pi. So, there's a chance that I'll be mentioned in the Daily Universe... for memorizing pi. Weird. Anyway, I did win the iPod. Though, it's exactly the same as the iPod shuffle I currently have, so I'm going to sell it on amazon.com or something and split the money with Ashley. (Since we both know the same amount.) Oh man, I freakin' love it all. Being a nerd rocks!

What else of interest happened? I went and saw a play with Steve last night, "Berenice." It was actually really good! I really didn't know what to expect. Apparently it was an adaptation written by a BYU student. Really intense stuff. Our theater department has some really talented people in it. There were a couple times that this girl screamed off stage... and it freakin' scared the crap out of me every time. One: because the first time I didn't think it was part of the play and I was geniunely scared that someone was in intense pain. Two: it was done really well! It was piercingly painful to listen to. Three: I just jump at that kind of stuff easily. :) Anyway, it was good times.

What's not good times is that it seems I'm starting to get sick or something. I can't really tell what it is, either. Like, I just feel kind of weak with the occasional feeling of nausea. I took a nap today, though. That seemed to maybe help. Hopefully it doesn't turn into anything else, but I don't really see how I could "catch up" if I took some days off from school. Ugh... that'd be bad. It'll be fine. :)

Okay, so here are some videos. I really don't remember being that weird. Sometimes I worry about myself. These were all taken the same night. The "random" numbers that we're talking about are from pi... yeah... weird. But, it just makes it that much more fun to watch! Or something.

Into March

Here I am in March, still surviving my 4th semester here at BYU. Things are going pretty well for the most part. My most frustrating class by far right now is Calculus. I really think I'm going to get some sort of B or C in that class, which will of course lower my GPA a fair amount since it's a freakin' 4 credit class. Though, I figured it out and it really wouldn't lower it too much. It'll be okay... I really am learning a lot. The most frustrating part is that my grades don't seem to be reflecting that very much, and our teacher hasn't really structured the class to give you much credit for trying really hard. Well, I guess he kind of has... but it's not really working for me. I got really frustrated on Friday night. There was an online homework due and I had literally spent hours on the last 4 problems that I just could not figure out what I was doing wrong. Some of them I just flat out didn't know how to do, and some of them I felt like I did but kept getting the wrong answer. So I ended up getting about a 50 on the assignment and just wasting a bunch of time trying to figure out the problems and getting no credit for using that time. It was rather frustrating. Though, I know that it really did help me learn more to go through it, right? Sure. I don't know, I'll just be happy to be through with this class.

I was complaining about CS 124 before, but now life should be a fair amount easier in that class since I passed off my last assembly lab on Friday. Now we get to do labs in C! I'm so excited. We have our second test this week, and I'm hoping to do well on it. I have learned a lot from doing the labs. Let's hope that shows on the test.

As far as other things going on, it's great. :) I absolutely love Music Theory, I seem to be doing fairly well in Dictation, Sight Singing exists, I love my Music Education class, private lessons are surprisingly going well, and work is fun. It's just the two classes for my Comp Sci major. There's this nagging thought in the back of my mind that's saying, "Why are you doing this again?" Then I remember that I'll love having the knowledge and that I really do love to learn it all. It can just be frustrating at times. I promised myself I could do it, and I'm going to stick to the plan. I can do it, gosh darn it! Prove all the people that don't believe that I can do it wrong! Mwhaha! :)

In other news, I'm actually going on dates. I know, it's incredible. What's even more incredible is that it's with the same guy! Well, I least I think you'd call them dates. We haven't really officially titled anything, but he has paid for my food and such. He's another CS 142 TA, and we were chatting on gmail, and then he said that I should come over and watch V for Vendetta with him since we were talking about it. He hadn't seen it and I was telling him how awesome it was. He happened to have it. So, about a week or so later, I actually did come over and watch it with him. Then I ended up coming over for dinner a couple days later and staying until about 10 just talking and whatnot. Then we went to Taco Bell and got ice cream on Friday night (which was somewhat unexpected), and then today I went to his place with Ashley to have dinner and play Settlers of Catan. Oh boy, it's been fun. We'll just see where it all goes. :)

I have another song that I wrote that I've somewhat deemed "finished." It's called, "Suppression." Some of the things in it have been somewhat experimental, but I like it a lot. Hopefully I can play it in Master Classes sometime and maybe record it or something.

Alright, I should head off to bed. Until next week! :)

A Week of Extremes

I missed Sunday's update... but oh well. This'll do. :)

This past week I felt somewhat bipolar. Maybe not in the precise definition of the condition, but just that one day I felt somewhat depressed and sad about certain things, and then the next day I was exuberantly happy. It was kind of weird. Since, though, I've mostly stayed with "exuberantly happy." Wednesday in general was a very stressful day. I wanted to get my CS 124 lab done so I wouldn't have to worry about finishing it on Thursday (since it was due on Thursday) and I had to perform the first movement of the Mozart Concerto in Master Classes that night only rehearsing with my pianist for the first time an hour before we performed (not to mention I was basically just learning the second half of it), and I had a couple other things that were due that day as well. I just wanted it to be over. I didn't seem to have much done with my lab by 8 o' clock that night, and after performing in Master Classes, I felt like I didn't do very well at all. Right after performing I was rather proud of myself for just making it through since I had only really rehearsed it once and was hoping to just get the notes and rhythms right with a couple other things. And I did just that! The 3 or 4 hours before I had spent at work listening to various recordings of people playing the first movement on youtube so I could just get it in my head. It probably would've helped to have the music in front of me, but I had that thing stuck in my head like nobody's business. I was feeling pretty good. Then came the comments. They weren't terrible, it was just nobody said anything good about it. It was all, "This should've been more exaggerated, the style needed to be more this and that..." Someone mentioned that I needed to just get a recording to know how certain things go. I knew there was one spot that many people played a certain way, but I just chose not to. I guess that made her think I didn't know how it was supposed to go. I did play one half note as one beat because I had gotten in the habit of doing that in my practicing just out of stupidity. Maybe that's what she was thinking of. After sitting down I just felt like I had completely insulted a standard in Oboe literature. Like I should've just nailed it and failed. All I wanted was one good thing said, and nobody said anything. If anything, it was like people were eager to tell me everything I did wrong. 

So, needless to say, I felt pretty down. I think in retrospect it's just that it is one of those pieces that everybody knows and so the whole time I was playing they had a certain recording in their head and all they could think of was how what I was doing didn't match what they had going in their mind. I'm not a terrible Oboist, I know that. It was fine. I'm just learning it, and it's a freakin' beast. It'll be alright. :)

I got home and was just thinking about how I really needed to finish my lab, and I just wasn't getting it. It's frustrating because with Computer Science stuff I normally get it. I've had so much experience with it, and I freakin' teach it to people every day. I feel like I should catch on quickly. But in CS 124, we are dealing with stuff that's completely knew. Gates, latches, MDR, Program Counter, etc. So much information to absorb. I've found that usually with this type of stuff, I feel slower than normal right at first. Like I just don't get it as fast as most people are getting it. Then, one moment, it just makes sense. It's like an exponential growth of knowledge as things click here and there. I'm finally hitting that point where things are making sense. But, Wednesday night, I was still at the beginning slow stage trying to figure things out. All I had to do was making a program that took single digit numbers until you pressed "=" and it would output the sum. Sounds simple. In Java I could code that up in about 2 minutes. But in this class, I had to do it in assembly. I was actually excited to learn how to program in assembly. It's like the base level of programming. You have to tell the computer how to do everything. Right at first, it's just giberish. It makes no sense. Well, needless to say, Wednesday night I finally got it to work! Things made sense! I went to bed happy.

Thursday morning came and life was grand! Except for the fact that I had an incoming Calculus test I didn't feel ready for, I loved it! I was at work and I was just giddy. I taught a help session for CS 142 and I think I was just a little too excited for the students to teach loops and conditional statements. It was so weird. I felt odd being so happy after feeling so depressed the day before.

Oh! I also had a Dictation Pace test on Thursday--I got a B+ or A- again! (I'm not completely sure, but right around there.) I keep feeling like I'm getting lucky. I might just be able to pull off a B+ in that class. That'd be so grand. It'd make up for whatever grade I'm going to get in Calc 2. Ugh, that class is the death of me. It just takes so long to do everything. I'm planning on taking the second midterm tomorrow night. It's going to be torture again, I just know it. I'm hoping to pass this one, but we'll see. I attempted to study today, and it took me two hours to do the first 3 problems on the review. Well, we looked at some other things. Oh boy. It'll be fun, I just know it.

Let's not forget that this was a three-day weekend! We had today off! I know it's somewhat rare to get President's Day off in college, but this will sadly be the last day we get off until the end of the semester. Which, in terms of working is good. In fact, I'm not too torn up about it because we get out so early. Oh wow... we are already in the middle of February. It's actually kind of worrisome that we are already so far into the semester when I feel like so many of my classes shouldn't be close to finishing. Like I haven't done enough to really sustain my grade where I want it to be. *cough* Calculus! *cough*

Oh boy, I'm typing quite a bit. Today there was a kind of Music 276 party again. It was fun as always! We watched "Much Ado About Nothing" and had pizza and cookies, as well as played Mad Gab. What a fun game. It was somewhat frustrating to hear everyone complain about Keanu Reeve's "terrible" acting everytime he'd come on screen since I was somewhat obsessed with him back in the day. I didn't say anything. I wouldn't say that the first thing I thought of when they suggested watching that movie was that it had Keanu Reeves' in it. In fact, when they first showed his face, someone said, "Oh, I forgot he was in this movie!" Then people went on to say how he was Neo, was a horrible actor, and his best movie was Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. They'd say that he probably didn't have any idea what he was saying and was just repeating lines he had memorized with certain feelings associated with it. If there's one thing I know, it's that Keanu Reeves is not dumb. He's actually very smart. I'm not gonna say he's the best actor I know, but I know that he's not as terrible as people make him out to be. Maybe I should've said something. It obviously kind of bothered me. Oh well! :)

Alright, I think I'll stop here and head off to bed. I've got to get up early tomorrow to do my sight singing homework. What a joy!

I Fail

I was doing so well at updating this every Sunday, and then I missed last Sunday! Fail! Oh well, here I am updating on a Tuesday night. I'm now free for a week! No more classes until next Monday. Good times. Most of my classes today were cancelled. It's funny because I think they were cancelled more because the professors knew that hardly anyone was planning on coming to class anyway. I would've gone, but oh well. I'll take the free time. :) I ended up just programming a calculator in my free time... yeah, I'm that big of a nerd. I'm working on a calculator with lots of complex functions. So far I've got it getting any sort of root (square root, cube root, 4th root, etc), inverse, power, factorial, and now I'm working on getting the log to work. Ugh, it's so hard. I'll get it figured out eventually. It's just so much fun! :)

The plan for this week is to go to my Aunt and Uncle's place (Don and Debra) for Thanksgiving. It should be fun. Free food, fun, and just being with family. Even if it isn't my direct family... it's just under a month until I'll be back for Christmas and be able to see them again. :) My mom sent me pictures today from a family get together this past Saturday. Everyone in our family was able to come (all the kids, their spouses and their kids) except for me. That was kind of sad to think about, but the pictures were all freakin' adorable! How did I get the cutests nephews and niece in the world?? Man, it's awesome. I'm so looking forward to seeing them all again this Christmas. Good times!

My excuse for not updating on Sunday is that I was having dinner with some family! I met up with my Aunt Bonnie and some of her kids (Jonathan, Jared, and Alena) along with Jeff and Nicole and their kids, Grandpa B, and Kristie and her daughter! Shawn and Coby weren't able to come because Coby wasn't feeling very well. It was so much fun! We had this awesome dinner of potato cream soup with some topping stuff (bacon bits, cheese, and green onions) and this delicious salad and some jello salad. Then there was dessert: cheesecake and pumkin chocolate chip cookies. Mmm... it was fun to see everyone again. After a lot of people had left and Jared was waiting for his laundry to finish (LOL... couldn't pass up the opportunity to do laundry for free), we played Apples to Apples. Such good times. It's great having family up here. Jeff reminded me a lot of my dad and Bonnie reminded me a lot of my mom.

So this Saturday was the rival game between Utah and BYU... long story short, BYU lost 48-24. At the half we were only behind 24-27. Just a field goal! Then Max Hall, the BYU quarterback, fumbled it which led to a touchdown by Utah. That just seemed to get him down and he ended up throwing about 5 interceptions after that... almost all of them leading the Utah scoring somehow. I've got to say, many of the Utah fans are just not nice. I was honestly scared wearing a BYU marching band uniform while being in that stadium. One of their favorite things to do was to give us the finger. It seemed like when Utah would make a good play they would cheer at us to rub it in our face more than to cheer on their team. We had this combined show with the Utah band and they were all really nice. One of their Saxphone players started singing, "Why can't we be friends..." So true! Why not? Man, they were all great people. It was fun performing with them. I remember one person looking at me and saying, "I'm sorry... " Oh, is this person actually being nice!? "...I'm sorry that you go to BYU." Oh, just kidding. He couldn't have the class to just respect me as a person. Oh well... at least I can sleep at the night knowing that I'm not rude to the Utah people.

Okay, I should try to finish my Smallville Rambling for the most recent episode, Bride, before I leave to Debra's place. It's gonna be so freakin' long... so much to talk about!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving! 

October is really coming to a close. It's almost November! Wow, I have to register for classes for next semester in like a week or two. Weird! Next semester should be fun. I should be able to be more consistent with my practicing and such, and I'll be able to work more hours without marching band. Which means more money! I don't really need more money, but it's nice to have it. I'll need it when I'm paying for Fan Fair, which I've basically decided I'm going again next year. The plan is that my mom will meet me in Nashville and we can go together again. Since I'm staying for Summer and Spring and not really coming home for the summer... it's time that we'll be able to spend together. It'll be fun. :) I'm just hoping it won't be too hard to miss that school. I'll know ahead of time so I should be able to plan ahead so it won't hurt me to miss school. I'll need a break, man. I'm going to lose my mind. I'll be taking American Heritage then too... ugh. That class just seems like so much freakin' fun...

This week I'll be starting to observe and participate in a middle school band class instead of an orchestra. I'm going from Viola to... *drumroll* ... Trombone! We'll see how it goes. It'll be interesting because it has such a big mouthpiece! I'm not used to buzzing my entire mouth when I play. I'm used to the little mouthpieces with French Horn and Trumpet. It should be fun. I'm excited to be able to use my air to play again! The whole bow thing was just not as comfortable to me. Though, it was just starting to feel better, and now we're switching. :P It's okay, I'll learn more when I'm taking a year of String workshop... next year? I don't remember. If not next year, the year after that. Man, I love my major. :)

I finally talked to a counselor and told her of my plan to double major, and surprisingly she didn't seem to care too much. I had everything I needed for Music Education and she already signed this paper giving me permission to double major. The only problem is I need like 3 other signatures to do it. I also need to meet with the Computer Science counselor to make sure I'm planning to have all the classes I need for the Computer Science major. That shouldn't be too big of a deal. I don't need to be accepted into the Computer Science major. It's the secondary major. :P Man, that's awesome. I'm insane. It's absolutely wonderful.

I finally got a calling, too. I'm the Music Director for Relief Society. Sounds pretty important and exciting, but it basically involves either leading the music or making sure it gets lead on Sunday, and picking which hymns we sing and making sure the pianist knows what they are. Not too hard, and I get to lead! Man, it's amazing how many people don't know how to lead. Not that I'm great, but I at least know where the downbeat is and what time signature to direct. I assume I'll get better when I'm going to take my conducting class. :P

Anyway... I need to go to bed. I'm planning on getting up early to finish the homework I neglected to do this weekend. I ended up spending a lot of today trying to figure out what was wrong with The Phantom Zoners... I kind of broke them for a while. But, now they are working again. Goodness, such a pain.

Off to bed I go! :)

October is here!

And I'm still surviving. :) I was starting to feel sick last Friday and Saturday, but am feeling much better. The cure? Walking in the rain for about 45 minutes to Smith's for some groceries on Saturday evening. So, it was only supposed to be about a 10-15 minute walk, but I guess I wasn't exactly sure where it was. I thought I did, but after turning into two or three roads and walking until I was sure it wasn't it, I ended up calling my mom and asking where the heck Smith's was. She led me to it, and I was able to buy some much needed milk for the cereal I was craving. I also bought some other things, such as a twelve pack of Slim Fast shakes (well, the Kroger brand), peanut butter, jelly, bread, apples, oranges, bananas, hot dogs, and bologna. I knew it would be kind of a pain to bring home, but if I wanted breakfast the following week, I need to those cans. It saves a lot of time. Let's just say it was kind of painful walking home. I can still feel bruises where the bags were on my arms. After I couldn't really feel my fingers anymore, I just had them hanging on my forearms while I held them at a 90 degree angle until I got home. I'm definitely sore. :P But at least I have some more food now! I should be set for at least 2 or 3 weeks now.

What else? Oh! I taught my first lesson to the middle school string players at Springville Junior High here! It was a lot of fun! I planned it out so extensively... in fact, I think it contributed to me feeling sick. I went to bed at about 1:45 AM Wednesday night, and I had run out of bananas, which I normally eat along with my shake for breakfast. So I had a smaller breakfast than normal, and I had woken up at about 5 that morning so I could get there early so practice the song I was supposed to be teaching. I had planned to demonstrate it to them, but I wanted to be sure that I knew what I was doing. So, little sleep, stress, and little food I guess made me feel a little sick. But I feel better now! I'll remember to try to take better care of myself in cases like that. :) Thus why I bought more food! I love food. :)

So I'm thinking about what I'll do with my life. I want to go on a mission sometime. I thought I would just go after I graduate, but thinking about it, I'd really want to just go right into teaching after graduating. So maybe I'd go in the middle of my major? The problem: I'm kind of young. When I turn 21, when I can actually go on a mission, I'll be starting my senior year. Granted, with the two majors I'll have two senior years... I don't know. I just wouldn't want to interrupt it. I can just see when I'm looking to get a teaching job when they see that I graduated in 2012, and it's 2013 or 14 and they see I have no teaching experience. "What'd you do?" "I went on an LDS mission." "So... you've forgotten everything you learned from your major?" Well, umm... no, not quite, but it is kind of rusty... uh... yeah. I don't know what's going on. But, besides the when I'll go on a mission thing, I was thinking about grad school. Which, I suppose could solve the mission problem. After I graduate, I could go on a mission, and then when I come back finish grad school, and then get a teaching job, or something. I was looking at the graduate music programs (well, and computer science, but I've basically decided I'd want it to be music), and the MA in Music Education looks interesting. There was one class: Psychology of Music. Oh wow... that just sounds utterly fascinating. It's honestly one of the most interesting things to think about. Why does music evoke certain feelings in people? Who decided that a minor chord makes people feel sad? Nobody! It just does! Nobody told you to feel that way--it just does! I really want to study how and why that is. Oh man... great stuff.

Oh, and Computer Science is pretty interesting as well. :P

Okay, as usual, I have homework I should be finishing. I'll get to that. :)

Procrastinating is Phun!

I should be reading my Calculus and taking a quiz saying that I read my Calculus, but I feel like procrastinating it a bit longer. Since I've written a blog the past two Sundays, I'll make it a goal to try and write a blog at least once a week--on Sunday. So here I am! Writing another blog. Good times indeed.

I took my first Dictation pace test last Thursday--not exactly sure how it went. This teacher, who is another grad student, grades them on his own. I guess to ensure that we don't cheat. But now I don't know what I got on it until Tuesday. A little nerve-wracking since I'm positive I messed up the last harmonic dictation part. I... had some weird stuff there. At least I'm pretty certain on the bass... and he grades nicely on the analysis. Even if the analysis is wrong, if we analyzed what we wrote as the chord correctly, we get points. I didn't do so well on the mock exam... I'm positive I did better on this one. Whatever. Passing the four semesters of dictation is my goal. I was able to pull off a B last semester--which was awesome. Having a B again would be cool. B+ to an A awesome--but highly unlikely. I guess we'll see!

I always have Calculus homework to do. Luckily, I mostly enjoy what I'm doing so it's not that big of a deal. It's just every night when I'm thinking of what I need to do for the next day, there's always Calculus on the list. I either have to read the chapter and take a quiz about it, or do written homework. There are also quizzes due on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but I luckily work on all three of those days and I usually just finish the quizzes then. I should try to get out of that habit though. There are going to be days that I'll be actually working the whole time and I won't have time to finish the quizzes. Not to mention the material is going to be getting harder and the quizzes will take longer. Calculus 2 should just be a load of fun. :) It is nice having a math class. I like math. In fact, I think I decided I wanted to minor in Math. Yup, a double major in Music Education and Computer Science with a Math minor. Three of the classes I have to take for the minor are already required for the Computer Science major, and one class can replace a class that's required for the Computer Science major. So really it's just a matter of taking 2 or 3 more classes. Not a big deal. I might as well, right? :) Somewhere down the road if I really wanted, I could probably get a job teaching Math. I hear those people are in short supply. That'd be fun.

I'm slowly getting better and better at the Viola. I got another oboist who also played Violin/Viola in high school to show me how to bow correctly. Now I actually play the instrument better! Now I just need to try and train my fingers to find the spots on the Viola for the notes so I can be in tune. Supposedly lots of string players are out of tune, even some string performance majors. At least that's what some people tell me. I'm not going to be one of them. :P I can try at least. I figure this is the time to try and get my fingers in the right places and train my ear to be in tune. I'm probably dreaming. Oh well!

My lesson last week went fine. Besides the fact that she asked me to play my E scale stuff. Which that just happened to be the one scale that I hoped she wouldn't pick. Literally, every other scale I worked on until it was back to where it was last semester. But 30-45 minutes later when I finally got to E, my mouth was getting pretty tired. I just ran through it until I played it right once. I didn't really get my fingers to remember sufficiently. It kind of came out with my fingers got confused up high. But, it's all good. I did practice it again so my fingers remember now. She'll probably pick another scale tomorrow--or forget. That'd be nice. :P I can play my freakin' scales. I practiced them to death my first semester. Literally, I played them an hour a day. For the first 20 or 30 minutes each hour that I practiced I would run through all my scales. I remember once spending an entire hour on just scales. It was rather boring and monotonous. Thus why I kind of am losing the will to practice them as much. I should try and be better about practicing. I scheduled practice rooms--but lots of them are in the evenings. Which means after I've already gone home and eaten and settled back in, I have to walk back to the HFAC and practice for an hour. It's not that big of a deal--it's just a matter of getting myself up and doing it. I need to get in the habit... habit... I just have so many classes this semester. Well, not really classes, just lots of classes that take up a lot of time. Then if there's anytime before 6, I'm working or practicing or something. I'm not like really stressed out, just have a lot to take my time. In fact, I'd say I'm pretty happy right now. I enjoy my classes for the most part, and I know how everything goes. Regardless, I'll be happy when this school year is over. :P I'll be done with the silly music core! (Music Theory, Sight Singing, and Dictation) I really like Music Theory, but I could definitely do without Sight Singing and Dictation. Oh... I just remembered. I have Sight Singing homework to do tonight. Blech... that'll be fun.

What else? Oh, I finally did my wash. Good for me. It costs so freakin' much here! I wonder if the prices went up at Helaman Halls, too. It cost $1.25 per wash, and $1.00 to dry each wash. I had three loads--it cost me a freakin' $6.75 to do my laundry! Insanity. Especially when you're used to umm... free. Oh well. I'll just remember to have more naked days. Anything to save money. Ooorr... I could just never do my wash. Be smelly! Totally worth the money.

I hope you all know I'm kidding.

I suppose I should end this post and do my homework. Fun!

One More Week!

So now that it is the end of Wednesday life is pretty good. :) My jury is now over, and it seemed to go pretty well. I didn't really mess up anything. A couple little things, but they're forgivable. :p So now I just have to do my other finals, which are significantly less worrisome. I've basically taken it easy the rest of today, though. Tomorrow I'll try to actually study and finish some finals and whatnot. I'll try to be done with my finals by Monday. Yay! :)

So a week from today right now I'll be back home with my family. I'm so excited! I was planning on driving back with Ashley, but suddenly her brother changed his mind and is not going to stay Spring term. That means I'm no longer required to driver back with her because her brother will be there. That means it's cheaper (with my Dad's flying benefits), faster, and easier for me. I'll be home on Wednesday rather than Sunday. Wow. I'm unbelievably excited to be back home for the summer. It's so close! SO close...

Okay, so right now it's about 11:38 PM and I have no idea what time I'm planning on going to bed. Though, I do know that I'll be sleeping in tomorrow... yay for sleeping in! I love getting sleep. Though, it's nicer when I have cool dreams. Last night I had dreams about Computer Science. Not really exciting at all. I guess that's what happens when I help people with their programs for CS 142 for about 9 hours in one day. Yeah, I stayed until a little after midnight Tuesday night helping people since it was the last day to pass off labs and such. It was good times. That'll somewhat make up for the hours I'll miss on Thursday since it's a reading day and I normally work for 5 hours on Thursday. Yay for getting money! :)

Alright, well I guess this is it for now. I can't think of anything else significant to say... so until next time! :)

Life is almost awesome

After Wednesday I shouldn't have too much to worry about. You know... just the rest of my finals. That will include Music Civ 202 (which is online), Book of Mormon (as long as I do the review... I should be good), CS 235 (which shouldn't be too bad), Music Theory (which is take home... shouldn't be too bad), and Dictation. As long as it's a good day for Dictation, it should be alright. If I get an 85 or so, I'll get a B in the class. Let's hope for that. It's much better than a C-, that's for sure. :) Last semester I was hoping to pass, this semester my goals are a little higher. Yay! :) So, those other finals shouldn't be too bad. It's just that and working. Just grading CS 142 finals. I'm all for getting more money. I wasn't counting on getting money for working during the finals week. So, yay for more money! I suddenly have realized that I have a good amount of money. Well, a good amount considering I was basically out at the beginning of the semester. Good thing I got that job. :) I think this'll be the only semester that I'll be able to pull off working 17 hours a week, though. I just don't think I'll have the time otherwise. Either way, I should be able to make enough money to go through college without debt. That's my goal. I think we'll get there. w00tness!

What else? Oh, so I am capable of making good reeds. I ended up making a pretty good reed on Tuesday, that worked okay at Master Classes. It just wasn't quite broken in enough. Geralyn did make a comment after I played about how the reed wasn't good enough for me. Eh, it's a lot better now. It's not perfect (I don't think the perfect reed actually exists) but I think it's pretty good. I'm trying to make some other good reeds... but so far it's not working too well. We'll see where that goes. Oh, I need to call my accompanist and run through my jury again with her. We really need to work out a couple parts in the Hummel. I thought we got it worked out before Master Class on Wednesday, but then at the performance, it wasn't together. Ugh. Hopefully that doesn't happen this Wednesday. I guess we'll see. Even if it does... whatever. I'm not going to fail my jury. I'm just hoping to end up with an overall A.

Wow, this semester is actually ending. I've pretty much survived one whole year at BYU. I had a really hard time seeing this in August last year. I was so intimidated by college. I didn't know if I could handle it and be able to practice and whatever. It's been fun! Yeah, I get busy at times, but it's mostly fun. I enjoy pretty much all of my classes, I have my own computer, and I get to completely manage my own time and schedule. It's lovely to have freedom like this. Though, of course, as much as I love it, I'm excited to go back home for this summer. Just to be back with my family and not stress about school. I think overall I'm less stressed here at college than I was in high school. Eh... that might be a lie. I think I'm just overall happier here. Yes, I think that's it. There isn't the politics in band like there was in high school, and I just love the fact that the church is mixed in with learning. Almost everyone is Mormon! It's crazy!

Okay, well I still need to read about 60 pages of the Book of Mormon in about 2 days, so I'll get on that. :) I love it, it's just time consuming.

End of semester, here I come!

I can feel it now

There's just under two weeks of classes left now. The end really is coming. Two weeks from yesterday is the last day of classes, two weeks from today is my jury, and then after that I just have my finals... and then sweet freedom! I'm really looking forward to this summer. I'll have my own computer in my own room with my own internet. Well, it's my parents internet... but it's not blocked or anything! I'll finally go to myspace, youtube, and any other streaming video site at my own free will! This should be the last year to worry about it, too, because I'm definitely not planning on living on campus for the rest of my college career. Yay!

Some other good news is that I finished my AVL tree lab for cs 235. It was rumored to be the hardest lab of the semester, and I finished it early! So, I got a 102 on it. :) Yay! Though, it did pretty much consume my entire weekend. (Mostly Saturday) There's just one more project, and 2 more homeworks. Though, the homeworks always turn out to be really easy. It's actually really funny. There was a homework due last Friday, and I turned it in Monday morning before the TAs got there. Oh yeah, and on their website they have in bold that there's NO LATE HOMEWORK ACCEPTED! Yeah... I turned in homework due on Friday on Monday morning... full credit. Well, actually I missed two points on it because apparently I thought that 7 was greater than 9. Whatever.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to maintain my GPA this semester, but at least my Dictation grade is significantly better! I have about a B in the class so far. Yay! I had barely a C- last semester. That is really good news. Though, I'm basically guaranteed to not get an A in Music Civ 202. I can hopefully pull of an A-. Book of Mormon, surprisingly, I'm really hoping for another A-, but it's probably going to be a B+. Burn. I thought religion classes were supposed to be easy. Oh well. At least I'm learning a lot from it. :)

Oh, and it's official. I'm going to Fan Fair (or CMA fest... whatever) this summer! My mom and I bought tickets and booked a hotel yesterday and the day before. If I didn't go now, it would be a drastic waste of money. It's looking like it will cost me about 700 dollars. It seems like a lot of money... well, it is a lot of money, but I was expecting to pay about 1000 dollars, if not more. So, I'm pretty excited. It should be so much fun. :) YAY! This summer is going to rock.

And since I'm sucking at life at posting in this blog, I'll go ahead and post another video. Yay for videos!



I just turned on the camera, and apparently the room spun around me. It was all rather thrilling.

The End is Coming...

So, I haven't been that great at updating this. Maybe I'll try to be better from now on. Or something.

So, the end of the semester is coming. I shouldn't be thinking that the end is coming, though, because then it makes me think of the summer and not having to worry about school and everything. So, then... I'll stop worrying about school now. :p So, the end isn't near as far as I'm concerned!

Right now I'm working on a CS 235 lab. XML Parser. They give me XML code (a lot like HTML code) and I'm supposed to parse it into a tree linking the different tags and stuff. It seems to be going pretty well so far. You can put stuff into it and print it out, but it just doesn't quite work how they want it to yet. Hopefully I can finish it tonight so I can turn it in tomorrow for one point extra credit. I'm looking forward to it.

The good news is that this weekend I finally made a good reed. It's not perfect (if that even exists), but it mostly plays in tune and plays soft and loud! It's response is pretty good too. I'm proud of myself. Now I should try to make the other blank a good reed. Then I'll have two good reeds at once both made by me! Oh wow... that'd be incredible. We'll see if that happens.

Today I also broke my flash drive. Sad day. I just had it in my computer and then my leg bumped it and... it broke.
It looks like it might still read, and yet... no. The good thing is that there isn't really anything on there that I really need. With the last lab I had actually done my work on the flash drive and just brought it back and forth between TA-ing and being at home. This time I worked on it on my hard drive, and then copied it on the flash drive to work on at work. So, I didn't lose any work. I'm just going to buy another one. In fact, I already have. I bought a 4 GB one for about 9 dollars. w00t w00t! It was actually like 19 dollars, but I got 10 dollars off for being a first time customer. I'll take it. :)

So, since it's been so long since and entry, I'll include a nice video.

Another Day

So, another day has come and gone. I was able to finish my lab for CS 235 this weekend and turn it in today for a 100. I had it finished yesterday, but the TAs leave early on Mondays for FHE, so I turned it in today for a 100 instead of a 101. It turns out when you try to turn in a lab fairly late at night (pretty much the only time that I could today) on the day that it's due, it's kind of busy. So, when I got there I had to wait in line for the one and only TA to help some other students before passing me off. That's okay, I didn't have to wait too long. As long as I was able to pass it off today I was happy. Yay. :)

I also didn't have sight singing today. Last week we decided to change the way we have class. Before, our class was split up into two groups. One group met for the first 25 minutes, and the other group met for the second 25 minutes. I'm in the second group. So, usually I would just do some other homework for 25 minutes while the other sight singing class was going on, or take a small nap. The other group also decided that they would do the "fast track." Basically, they went twice as fast as us so they could finish the class half way through the semester. So, they just finished last week. We decided that we would meet for an hour on Thursdays and turn in two assignments, and then not meet on Tuesdays! Good plan. So, now I only have Dictation on Tuesdays. Good times! It gives me some more time to get homework done/practice/make reeds/whatever. Yay. Today in this time I was able to buy a new plaque (for oboe reed making) so I can finally give Becka her plaque back since I lost mine last semester. It cost a little under 2 dollars; I can deal with that.

I also finally did my wash. In fact, that's what I finishing up right now. I'm waiting for my clothes to finish drying, and then I'll put them away. I basically have to put them away because it's either that or they end up on the floor. I don't have an extra basket to keep them in like I did at home. It's a good habit to get into anyhow. Then, following that I hope to start and finish my CS 235 homework that's due tomorrow by like... 9 PM-ish and do my 30 minutes of reading. So far it's look like I'll get somewhere around 5 hours of sleep. Not too shabby, I'm thinking. It's better than say... 3... or 2. Yeah, that's not such good times when I get 5 hours of sleep in a 48 hour time period. I'll try to avoid that.

In other good news, my sister and her husband were able to bring home little Kayla last Friday night! Yay! Also, my mom is going to come up here to visit her sister, and so she'll be able to come visit me too! I'm excited. :) We'll probably end up doing something fun, and maybe go out to eat somewhere and see a movie or something. Aww... such good times. Apparently Ashley's mom is also coming in town this weekend. Kind of odd. Though, her mom is coming to visit/take care of Ashley's... grandmother? Something like that. I don't quite remember. So, Ashley is probably going to just leave and spend the weekend at some relative's house. We'll see how that goes. There's even a small possibility of me being able to finally launch Gavin Mikhail Fans this weekend. I've made 3 wallpapers for it in the past couple of days. Aww... they make me so happy. I'm excited for this website. Finally, a website that has a good focus that hasn't been done over and over again by someone else. I haven't found any other actual Gavin Mikhail fan website. I've seen one forum for him, and that's it. So, hopefully this'll be able to be something successful. I'm hoping.

Alright, I'll go ahead and end with another weird video from that one night a week or so ago...


Yeah, I'm kind of a freak.

First Entry

So, I've conceded and decided to make a blog. I've already got a livejournal, and about 4 other websites, but no blog. I guess the livejournal will have to be left behind. I hardly every used it anyhow, and I like this blog idea. It sounds more "adult" than having a livejournal, even though it's basically the same thing. Whatever, here is me. In a blog.

It took forever for me to decide on a title for this dumb thing. It was driving me insane, actually. Which probably led to the title that I finally decided upon: Insanity Lane. I like it enough. People have called me insane numerous times, so it seems to make sense that my blog would be Insanity Lane. *shrug* Whatever...

Tuesdays and Thursdays basically rock. I have two classes, Music Dictation and Sight Singing and then I work for 5 hours. Now, this isn't working at the theater, this is being a TA for CS 142 which is the Intro to Computer Science class that I took last semester. Actually, I'm working right now. But since there isn't a lab due this week, we've been dead the entire time I've been here. I haven't helped a single person. And I get paid $9.60 an hour for it. Yeah... it's pretty awesome. Though, on days when we are swamped, it's not as awesome. I'm just constantly getting people off of the help/passoff list and talking all the time. I start to go hoarse from talking so much. It's fun when the people catch on quickly and actually learn concepts. It's not fun when they don't care about learning at all and only want to get the answers to the lab. They don't listen to me, at least I feel like they aren't listening to me, and don't catch on to anything I say. I try to explain one concept about 3 different ways and they still don't get it. Eventually after working with them enough we stumble on the right answer, but I can tell they don't entirely get it. *rolls eyes* Whatever... maybe it'll make sense eventually. But, overall I love it. I love programming, and I love helping people out and I'm aspiring to be a teacher. This combines all of those. And if we aren't busy, it gives me time to work on programs for the CS class I'm taking right now: CS 235. Which, doesn't seem to be too bad. Though, the last lab took me a bit to wrap my head around. But, once I got it I was able to finish it. That was a joyous occasion. A victory dance most definitely occurred.

What else? What else? I haven't been as good at practicing for 2 hours every day. I practice enough to know everything I need for lessons and everything, but not quite 2 hours every day. Like, I usually end up practicing for only an hour on Saturdays, if at all. If I have something else that's urgent to do, then I drop an hour of practice off that day. Granted, I still get enough in, it's just not quite up to par. I'm hoping to get better enough by the end of the semester so I can put 12 hours of practice a week on average at my jury with good conscience. Did that sentence make sense? If you read it enough, you'll probably get what I was trying to say. Anyhow, it'll be okay.

Though, I'm also not doing so well with getting sleep. I keep going to bed at like 2 or 3 AM and getting up at about 7. Yeah, it's about 4 or 5 hours of sleep. It's not too bad, but I'm not even being productive. In fact, all that I'm usually doing is talking to Andrew. It doesn't help that he lives in Washington and so he's an hour behind me. So, my 2 AM is his 1 AM. And he usually skips his 8:00 class and sleeps in. But... whatever. I wake up the next morning and go to class, and then if I start to get really tired, I promise myself that I'll go to bed earlier the next night so I won't be tired... but then I don't. I don't feel tired at night. Oh well. It's not really affecting me that much. I went through high school with 5 hours of sleep on average. :p

Anyhow, I think that's enough for now. I'm planning on writing in here fairly regularly. We'll see how long that lasts.